


X. The Wheel

by PostcardsfromTheoryland



Series: April Tarot Card Prompts [11]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Daemons, Alternate Universe - His Dark Materials Fusion, two aus for the price of one, you have no idea how long it took me to figure out the names and forms of everyone's daemons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:13:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609710
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PostcardsfromTheoryland/pseuds/PostcardsfromTheoryland
Summary: The Wheel: Time, the inevitability of change, cyclesA college AU with HDM daemons thrown in for good measure, because why not?
Relationships: Keith & Shiro (Voltron)
Series: April Tarot Card Prompts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1686346
Comments: 6
Kudos: 31





	X. The Wheel

“Bye Keith!” Hunk called from where he was cleaning the steamer, his capybara daemon Eema up on her hind legs to peek over the counter as Keith and Ashkor left the coffeeshop. Lance yelled his goodbyes from where he was inventorying in the backroom and Keith caught sight of a flash of bright blue kingfisher feathers from Delea, as well. Pidge raised her cup of mostly vanilla syrup with a little espresso thrown in, too absorbed in whatever theoretical physics textbook she was reading this week to say goodbye properly, her green magpie daemon Minneleus perched on her shoulder as normal. She didn’t actually work there like the rest of them, but it was her favorite place to do homework, and pester Lance, Hunk, and Keith while they were trying to actually do their jobs.

He let Ashkor make their goodbyes for him as usual, too eager to finally get home to take time for pleasantries. Luckily his apartment was only about a thirty minute walk from the coffeeshop, but it was also November and it was only going to get colder. They both breathed a sigh of relief when they made it to Keith’s shabby studio apartment, relaxing after getting through another day of classes, work-study at the library, and a shift at the coffeeshop.

Ashkor bounded into the center of the room, stretching and then cycling quickly through about a dozen forms, landing at last on something Keith was pretty sure was a firebird.

He was 21, and his daemon still hadn’t settled yet.

Keith had some theories about why he’d never settled, all revolving around not knowing his mom and his dad dying and Keith getting shuffled through the foster system until he aged out. Some of his high school counselors had had other theories, and theirs were a lot less kinder than his: that he was messed up, that he was broken, that he was _wrong_. When Keith had finally graduated high school, his last foster family kicking him to the curb but scraping enough money together through loans, work-study, and a couple other part-time jobs to go to one of the state schools in a city a few hours away, they jumped at the chance to reinvent themselves. He and Ashkor had sat down in the shitty group home they’d stayed in until they could move into the dorms, and decided that Ashkor would “settle” as a caracal. It suited him well enough, and though Keith knew he hated being cooped up in one form out in public all day, it was a lot better than the stares and the whispers they’d endured before.

It was why they’d turned down Shiro’s offer to move into the spare room in his apartment, preferring to know he was completely alone and he and Ashkor could decompress after keeping up appearances all day. Well, that and he didn’t want Shiro to think of him as a charity case. He still wasn’t entirely sure how brilliant, star graduate student Takashi Shirogane had looked at him that first day as the TA for Keith’s intro physics class and thought “yep, that’s the kid I want to mentor.”

“He’s a people person,” Ashkor said, flopping onto the floor and shifting into a wolfhound to mimic Shiro’s daemon Isolienne. “Just because he likes to help people doesn’t mean he thinks you’re someone to be pitied.”

“He didn’t even know me until freshman year.”

“You didn’t know anyone here before freshman year. I thought that was the _point_. Now we have friends, _somehow_ , and you want to question their motives?”

“I just…” Keith trailed off, not wanting to get into this fight with Ashkor again.

“You have homework,” he mercifully changed the subject, shifting again into a ball python and wrapping himself around Keith’s leg. “And you should eat something more substantial than the muffins from the cafe.”

* * *

“Shit,” Keith hissed upon opening their mail.

“Not good,” Ashkor concurred from his perch, wrapped around Keith’s neck as a ferret.

Their fucking landlord was _doubling_ the rent come January 1st. Even with the job at the coffeeshop and his work-study job at the library, even if he ate nothing but rice, beans, and ramen for the next year - it wouldn’t be enough.

“Pretty sure that’s illegal, actually.”

“Well it’s not as if we can afford a lawyer to contest it,” Keith shot back. “Damnit, now what?”

Ashkor leapt off Keith’s neck, merging into an osprey on the way, and went to grab Keith’s cell phone. “Call Shiro. Ask if he still has that room available.”

“But that would mean you wouldn’t be able to shift at all.”

“We could close the bedroom door,” Ashkor suggested. “And it’s not as if Shiro would be in the apartment 24/7. This is a better alternative than having to drop out or take out more student loans.”

And Keith hated that he was right.

* * *

It turned out Shiro did still have that room open, and he’d helped move Keith’s meager belongings after exams were finished. Shiro had shared the apartment with Pidge’s older brother, but Matt had left for a doctoral program out of state, leaving the second bedroom open. Shiro’s place was a lot nicer than his old rundown studio, not to mention being closer to campus and, to top it all off, split between the two of them the rent and utilities were actually a bit lower than what Keith had been paying for his studio. It almost made up for the stress he could tell Ashkor was under.

Almost.

“It’s fine,” he’d assured Keith behind their closed bedroom door, sprawled over Keith’s chest in the shape of a fennec fox. “This is for the best. We’re actually saving money this way, which we’ll need if you ever want to pay those student loans off.” It was true, and not just the lower rent: Shiro had a tendency to cook enough food for the both of them for dinner _and_ leftovers for lunch the next day. Shiro claimed it was because he’d first learned to cook while living with Matt and just wasn’t used to cooking for only himself, but Keith was still suspicious.

He could still see the strain on Ashkor, though. They’d gone through a similar situation the first year, still living in the dorms before they could afford an apartment, until Keith’s roommate had flunked out and he hadn’t been assigned a new one. Shiro was naturally friendly, and Keith didn’t want to constantly lock himself in his room so Ashkor could shift freely, but it was taking its toll; Ashkor was wound tight as a bowstring since they usually only had an hour or two for him to not be locked into a caracal form except for nighttime, and he didn’t want to keep Keith awake by shifting constantly overnight. And they were cutting into those hours even further today, since Lance, Hunk, Pidge, and Allura were coming over for dnd night.

“It will be fine,” Ashkor said again, though Keith couldn’t shake the feeling that it definitely wouldn’t be fine.

Dnd night started off well enough, picking up where they’d left off in their campaign. Allura had taken over as the DM while Coran, her uncle and Shiro’s advisor, was on sabbatical and Fiesse, her white stag daemon, was snickering while reading the notes over her shoulder, which probably didn’t bode well for the campaign’s general success. Pidge was on her fourth red bull while Lance and Shiro were fighting over the last of the nutella cookies Hunk had made. Everything was pretty normal.

Except, Keith knew, for him, since Ashkor’s tension was creeping into his thoughts as well, making him snappy and irritated. It didn’t help that Delea kept taunting them, spreading her wings and getting into Ashkor’s space whenever Keith had a bad roll, which was happening _a lot_. Eema and Isolienne were trying to keep the peace, but it wasn’t going so well.

On Keith’s fifth shitty roll of the night, Delea started trilling at them in laughter, and Ashkor leapt up from where he’d been lying at Keith’s side, snarling in anger, but then all of the conversation around them stopped as Ashkor’s vocal cords seemed to change, and Keith chanced a look at the two daemons and dropped the bag of chips he’d been holding because fuck, Ashkor had apparently been goaded into matching Delea _too_ well, and was currently displaying as a peacock.

He seemed to immediately realize what he’d done, trying to force himself back into a caracal but he took it too far, ending up as a little black domestic cat. Keith immediately scooped him off the floor and bolted for his bedroom, slamming the door behind them.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped, tiny claws digging into Keith’s jacket.

“It’s ok, it was bound to happen sometime.”

“Delea is a jerk,” Ashkor said sullenly, and Keith couldn’t help but agree. “I haven’t lost control like that in so long.”

“We’ve been under a lot of stress lately,” Keith replied, stroking his fur and then toppling backwards onto the bed as Ashkor shifted into dingo that was way too heavy to hold.

“Now what?”

“Dunno,” Keith said just as there was a knock. “Go away!” he yelled.

“Keith, it’s me,” Shiro said from the other side of the door. “Can we talk?”

“No,” Keith growled.

“Can _we_ talk?” And that was Isolienne’s voice, low and soothing, always more melodious than Keith expected from the wolfhound. “Shiro will stay on the other side of the wall.” Keith and Ashkor shared a look, before the latter shrugged despondently.

“Just you,” Keith answered.

“Just me.” The door opened and, true to her word, Shiro shut it again once she’d walked into the room. Ashkor got off the bed and walked toward her, shifting back into a caracal, but the damage had already been done, and Isolienne shook her head. “That isn’t necessary.”

“It isn’t right,” Ashkor muttered, but Isolienne swatted him on the snout.

“It is _you_ ,” she said. “And also, if it makes you feel any better, it...is not new information to us.”

“What?!” Keith and Ashkor shouted in unison, and Isolienne had the gaul to grin sheepishly at them.

“It was your freshman year. You were having a bad time.”

And Keith remembered the day she must have been referring to. Shiro had called him into his office to discuss an exam that he’d tanked, and Keith, completely at the end of his rope with no support system, had broken down and told Shiro everything: his time in the foster system, aging out with no one to tell him how to actually navigate college, wanting desperately to be a pilot but not knowing if he was good enough, his incredibly tight budget, his jobs taking up his study time, and the fact that his shitty roommate had locked him out of their room two nights in a row to sleep with his girlfriend. And Shiro had just sat there and listened, rubbing Keith’s back, and when Keith had cried himself out, suggested he take a nap on the couch in Shiro’s office before his shift at the library. Keith had vague recollections of Shiro covering him with a throw blanket while Ashkor tucked himself under Keith’s arm, and there was no way he could have done that if he was still in a caracal shape.

Whoops.

“Why didn’t you say something?” Keith asked. “If you knew this whole time, why didn’t you…?”

“It seemed like you didn’t want to discuss it,” she said, tilting her head in a shrug.

“Do the others know?” Ashkor asked, slowly darkening in color until he’d morphed into a panther.

“No, I don’t believe so. They are concerned. _For_ you, not about you,” she clarified. “Shiro is going to convince them to leave and give you some space, but you should probably talk to them sooner rather than later.” With that, she nosed the door back open and trotted out, leaving Keith and Ashkor alone with their thoughts.

“Well,” Ashkor started.

“Yeah,” was Keith’s eloquent reply.

“What do you want to do about this?”

“Go to bed and ignore it until tomorrow?” Keith suggested.

“You have a closing shift at the coffeeshop with Lance tomorrow.” Because of course he did. His phone vibrated from where it was charging on the nightstand, and Keith gingerly unlocked it to see their group chat had a few new messages.

_L: Ok first off Delea and I are super sorry about that and second off, WHAT_

_H: Lance don’t be a dick_

_P: No but this is objectively cool, you have no idea how many times I wish Minneleus could still shift into something bigger to tell off the people that try to get into my face_

_H: Pidge I’m not sure if that’s helping_

_A: I think, perhaps, Keith needs some space  
We’ll be here if you want to talk, Keith_

And a single private message from Shiro:

_S: There’s dairy-free ice cream in the freezer._

Keith and Ashkor shared a look before sneaking out into the hallway; everything was blessedly quiet, the remains of their game put away and everyone already gone. Shiro’s door at the other end of the hall was already closed. Keith grabbed the pint of cookie dough and a spoon, and if he finished off the entire thing sitting on his bed with Ashkor draped over his legs as a coyote, he was pretty sure he deserved it. He was still incredibly apprehensive about the rest of their friends’ reactions, but at least the knowledge that Shiro and Isolienne had apparently known about this for years and didn’t care was a little comforting.

He’d wait to see what tomorrow brought.


End file.
